Twisted Tale
by Frozen In Flight
Summary: Lloyd and the rest of the Group meet a strange young woman in the remains of a Desian Human Ranch. and things go down hill from there. Ideas came from my overactive mind, and my equally corrupted sister :D Re-doing, didn't like previous style!


THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS! That is all.

Not.

I had Character Remodeling. So, you're all getting "Story Remodeling". Sorry. It's being re-written with a different sort of Aurian, with a different style, and with... a lot more words.

(#)'s are for those who get lost easily. or don't recognize my spellings.

The woman will use odd magics, including some from other Tales of Games, a handful i took from Wheel of Time, one or two from Legend of Zelda, and some that i looked at pictures from a National Geographic and went "that would be an amazing spell!" I've modified the Spell Level system, because i really don't think that spells like Judgment and Grand Cross should be on the same level (high), so i've got a 1-7 tier system. 1 - you will get hurt. if you're insanely weak, or already 3/4 dead, it might push you over to dead ness.(Fire Ball, Aqua Edge) 7- you're going to die. If you're lucky, you'll only be severely damaged (Hi-Ougi's, Judgments from Seraphim)...

and I've added small 'cantrips', or 'non-battle wastes of Mana' as some might call it.

I own my own soul, and the idea behind Aurian, if nothing else of her. At least, I hope i still own my soul. i don't think i've bartered it away yet.

--Frozen

* * *

The small party, made predominantly of teenagers, walked through a forest near the base of a mountain range. One Hakonesia Peak, the place was called, and despite the map and the mercenary as guides, they had stumbled into this thickly treed area rather than the road up to the peak after breaking camp. They were a mixed bunch – a tall, dried-blood-color-haired man in dark purple with a swallow tailed cape and a long-sword at his left hip, the tallest of the group; a shorter brunette boy in a vivid red coat, suspenders, with two blades hanging from two belts looped about his waist; a silvery-white-blue haired woman in orange-brown with a staff; a cheerful blond girl in a white dress edged with dark blue, her weapons the hoops under her tabard-like cloak. The shortest was a small blue with more steel in his hair than the older woman, wearing a dark blue-with white coat and shorts, a Kendama in his pocket. Not to mention the large horse-wolf-dog creature that tagged along, standing as high as the brunette's shoulder... at its shoulder, pelt a most unusual hodgepodge of white and green.

The trio of teens walking up front and talking, with the woman trailing a few steps behind, and the tall man more than a yard, keeping silent and to himself, weaving through a almost-strait line in the forest, occasionally killing large insects, steadily moved what was actually North-East, rather than North-West. Then the elder boy walked into a dull, matte green and brown wall.

"Gah!" His friends stopped before they too walked into the wall, the boy holding his face and backpedaling. "Who puts a wall in the middle of a forest?!" The rest of the party looked over the wall, which rose above their heads, and even the tall man had to crane his neck back to see the edge – lined with wire and barbed.

"A ranch." He said shortly, and bluntly, in a very matter-of-fact, dull voice. The brunette teen gives him an irritated glare over his shoulder, but the man coolly ignored any such look sent in his direction as he studied the wall.

"I guessed that." The boy huffed, frowning at the wall. "But all of the way out here...?" the man shakes his head.

"Lloyd. Asgard is across the mountain range. There are plenty of humans to terrorize, either on the road or in the town. It is also hidden, thus a good location." The man says, moving to look over the walls of the ranch. Unlike the one in Iselia, this one didn't have chain-walls, just solid material. As Lloyd silently fumes, the woman sending the man disapproving glances, the party moves as silently as possible around the wall – not wanting to attract the attention of the possible Desians within.

They found the gate, or the remains of it. Part of the ground around the shattered ruins of the gates and the posts that held them in place still smoked.

"What...?" the small boy gasps, looking at it. The man slowly drew his long-sword, as the boy worked his blades in the sheaths. "It's destroyed!" it only took a moment of quiet conferring between the man, woman, and blond girl, before they moved to look in. The interior of the ranch was destroyed, the building in shambles, bloody corpses strewn about, both in the armor of Desians and in the rough burlap clothes of the human victims. The teens stared in horror, Lloyd with swords forgotten; the girl with her hands clasped in front of her chest, the small boy with horror. The man looked on dispassionately, with a 'seen it before' kind of air to his stern face, the woman looking on with horror and pity.

"We should move on. If there are any lingering Desians, we do not want to meet them." The man turned to look back the way they had come, his dark eyes flicking into the forest after their examination of the carnage.

"Kratos, how can you say that?!" Lloyd shouts, his friends voicing softer, but no less vehement protests. "There could be survivors!" Lloyd's hand made a cutting motion across the insides of the compound.

"Do you suggest we look through them all?" Kratos asked over his shoulder, meeting Lloyd's autumn-brown eyes, bright with anger, with his own calmly dull crimson ones. Lloyd jerked, looking over the destruction, and his face paled with a tinge of green. "You want to spend the next few hours looking through **that** for someone we might be able to save..?" Lloyd shook his head, almost unable to close his eyes, before the girl points at something farther out with a delicate white-gloved hand.

"Something moved! I think someone's alive!" She sounds relieved, grabbing handfuls of her skirt to move further in.

"Colette!" The boy cries, following her, as Kratos makes a soft noise of annoyance, following the boys after their friend.

"Chosen, it isn't safe." Kratos put one large hand in a finger-less gauntlet on the girls shoulder, intending to pull her back, even as the body she was intent on moved again with a pained moan. This one didn't wear the Desian armor, rather a filthy, stained dress-like shirt of burlap, and pants that hung too loose, but the man wasn't going to take any chances with his charge. Silvery hair matted by blood and other dirt covered the equally grimy face as the injured party struggled to move, faint vocal noises pained as they shifted, managing to roll over. The faintly moving figure was angular, thin due to poor food and conditions, and bloodied like the others. Blood soaked the back, as well, drawing the teen's eyes wide in horror, the man's narrowing in silent calculation- how much had the figure lost, if it all was theirs. Shakily arms moved to push the torso up, but then the right twisted, and gave out, and the battered figure fell to one side with a grunt.

"Professor... please?" Colette doesn't try to move against Kratos' hold on her shoulder, but her blue eyes were bright with worry and pain for the person. Blood dribbled out of the now coughing person's mouth, left hand curling slowly. "If we can save even one..?!" the other female of the party sighs, and begins gathering Mana even as she moves the few steps it took her to reach next to the figure on the ground.

"_First aid_.." She murmured, the green lights from about her hands jumping to the ranchee, who jerked, appearing to have just now noticed them, twisting over to peer at them from under the matted messy hair. The professor frowned, looking at the few visible wounds that had healed. ".. It did so little... so much left to heal..." the woman started gathering Mana gain, but the prisoner, eyes flicking over them all, spoke quickly.

"If y'kin git dis off mi, Ah kin hel miself." It was faintly feminine, that soft voice, but broken, strained to get out, and hoarse. The party takes a blink-moment, the professor peering at the angular figure, and then deciphered her sentence with the help of one battered, grimy hand indicating a metal collar about her neck, skin an irritated red about it. The professor knelt next to the thin woman, feeling the slight gap between the woman's neck and the collar.

"There's no lock to break off." the white haired woman mutters, grimacing at the blood she found congealing on the collar, wiping her hands on a rock. "Lloyd, I know you have lock-picks." The boy grins sheepishly, producing the slim pieces of metal from the hem of one of his gloves. The thin woman eyes him warily as he knelt on her other side, and within a few seconds, the collar clicked and fell into the boy's hands. The battered woman looked instantly a little less pale, some sort of color to her yet-pale features, and green sparks fly from her fingers as she brings them up to her neck. Lloyd backs up, looking at metal, and Kratos plucks it from his hands. His stern features gain a frown as he studies it, a sort of scowl.

"Null steel."(1) Kratos says, holding the ring of dark metal a bit gingerly, snapping it shut with a click. "When placed upon a person, any magic they hold, or are under, is negated. All magic's cast upon the wearer thereafter become diminished, the more the closer to the null steel. Any magic the wearer intends to cast fails." Lloyd looks irritated at the man's actions and knowledge, but also curious. The thin woman looked a little healthier, no longer a transparent sort of grey-white under grime and blood, but still very pale. Green sparks float about her hands, and the one she could move was brought up to rub at her neck, the visible wounds that still bleed slowly closed.

"Ah kold had tol' ya that." The woman said thickly, quickly, talking like they wouldn't pay too much attention to her if she filled thier ears, flinching as the healer straitened her twisted arm, then healed it. "Ma'ic only blu up in mi face, wen ah try'd. Stop'd try'n, dem Desians none too nice ab'ut patch'n us'n's up." She coughed after that, healing lights flicking about her torso and darting in, healing something inside her.

"We can't stay here for much longer. All this dead will be free food for Monsters, they will start converging soon, if not already." Kratos says, shifting his arm that held the collar back to the opposite shoulder, and then hurling it into the woods with a muted crash. "We should be on our way."

"We can't just leave her here, after healing her!" The small boy says, glancing at the woman. She had stopped healing herself, her skin a little ashen, and was sitting with her head bowed, like she was feeling ill.

"Can we take her back to Palmacosta, after we finish business in Hakonesia Peak?" Colette asks, looking from Kratos, to Lloyd, and then to the healer and her patient. "Maybe someone will know her from there – this ranch is close enough."

"Dis weren't mi firs' 'ranch'. A'fore dis one, the fancy-dress'd one was squinty-eyed. A'fore dat, fancy cloth'd was red-hair'd. An' a'fore him, Pu'ple hair, cau's ah ran off from the one who only 'ad one hand, one eye." she frowned, staring at the rubble. "Ah dun 'member if der was ano'er ranch a'fore dat or no." the woman brings her eyes back to watch them dully, warily, some swelling receding along her jaw.

"Watch my finger. Don't move your head." The healer held up one finger, moving it in various simple patterns. "What's your name?" The thin woman does as she is told, staying still and watching the healers finger, tracking it with her eyes alone.

"Dun got one." She gives a hitch of her shoulders like a shrug.

"How many fingers?" the healer held a few up. "Nonsense, everyone has a name."

"Dis many." The woman holds up the matching amount, and continues talking rapidly, as if she had given a bad answer and was distracting them. "Dun know wot it's call'd tho, the num'er. If ah dun 'member it, ah dun have one. All dem Desians call anyone is things like Vermin, swine, bitch, inferior be'in, inferior critter. Ah dun think all us'ns in the ranch's all name'd things like that. They call us num'er's too, different num'er per person. Ah'm sommat like.. tree-tree sev'to'for. But num'ers ain't a name." Lloyd makes a face as he deciphers what the woman had said.

"Well, we'll figure something out." The healer stands stiffly. "I can't heal you anymore right now, and you're still injured. You're low on Mana right now as well, so we might as well wait until morning." The woman nods slowly, even if her face said she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do, and the healer helped her to her feet. To some shock, for such a small form when curled up on the ground, she was taller than Kratos, even slouched as she was currently, and favoring a leg.

"This way." Kratos turns, leading the way out of the destroyed ranch. Colette followed him, then the healer and her patient, and the two boys. The walls were in shambles, and the mercenary's words were proving true; a wolf lunged out of a gap in the wall at the two women.

"Raine! Look out!" Lloyd shouts, drawing his blades, Kratos a half second behind him in turning to lunge, blade clearing the sheath in an arc. Raine, the healer, made a startled noise, and threw her staff up horizontally before her, a shield forming as she said 'Force Field'. The other woman started, jerking, and staggered back, the wolf correcting its course for the unprotected, possibly injured, prey. Her long fingers closed around a pipe in the rubble, and she swung it up, into the wolf's jaw. The continuation of that swing had her spinning around, eyes wide and startled, a bright golden color, before she fell to the ground again. But the wolf was dazed, and so the swordsmen were able to finish it easily before it could attack either woman again. The thin woman stared at the wolf's head, then her pipe and hands, and back, confusion on her pale face.

"So you can fight." Kratos says, cleaning his blade on the wolf's pelt, glancing back at the thin woman.

"Ah dun know." She says, sounding a little shocked. "Ah just watch'd. When the Desians kill'd monsters... or beat on us'ns." The woman was trembling, but she didn't let go of her pipe. "Ah.. didn't want ta get out free, and den get eat'n..." She seemed to realize what she was sitting on, and gave a startled noise, standing hurriedly from the rubble covering a dead Desian, her eyes even wider, and still trembling... Still holding her pipe.

"Don't worry!" Lloyd says, grinning as he finished cleaning his swords, sliding them back into their sheaths. "We'll make sure you don't get eaten. Dwarven Vow Number Two!" the small boy groans behind his tall friend. "Never abandon someone in need." Lloyd grins widely, nodding as he put his hands into his pockets. The thin woman looked startled, and confused.

"It is a common enough desire." Kratos says, turning to watch the forest, although from under the bangs he would watch the trembling woman for a few seconds, then the way out. "It is as my client wishes, so you need not fear for your life for while you are among us." The man continues talking, turning to walk on, the woman and his party staring at him – for he had basically said he would protect the battered female. "Keep the pipe; you might as well learn to protect yourself so you do not have to live in fear once on your own." The woman blinked, then looked at the pipe in her pale, scar heavy hands, and nodded, slowly, her confused gold eyes flicking up to the tall man's back, then the others.

".. This way." Raine, the healer, says, indicating the thin woman should continue to walk next to her. Again, she mutely nods, and continues with them, her shakes slowly dying. She really did watch, every time a monster attacked, her eyes would flick from combatant to combatant, watching as they parried and lunged, swung and used techniques. But Lloyd, and more inconspicuously Kratos, kept the monsters away from the healer and her patient, so the battered woman didn't have any chance to try what she was watching.

Kratos apparently knew where they were now, the way they traveled this time spat them out at the base of the mountain range, with the path ahead, before dark.

"We'll camp here tonight." The mercenary says, cleaning his blade on a broad-leaved plant before sheathing it. Raine nodded, and Noishe whined. The thin woman jumped, twisting to look for the noise, stepping on her own feet and falling onto her back with a wince, but no noise. Lloyd looks up from his fire making, nearly bashing his thumb as he strikes the flint, and then gets it going. The woman was staring at Noishe, not moving the slightest but for her near constant trembling. Lloyd walks over, smoothing Noishe's mottled fur.

"This is Noishe." Lloyd explains to the woman. "He's my dog." Her wide eyes flick from him, to the creature, then back. "He won't hurt you." Disbelief was in her eyes and face, she didn't move, flicking her attention back to Noishe, her eyes lingering on his large paws and teeth, before her attention came back to Lloyd. "Watch." Lloyd pries the dog-like creature's muzzle open and sticks his hand into his mouth. The woman jolts as Lloyd tries to press the jaws shut. Noishe whines, and pulls his head away, looking reproachfully at Lloyd. "See? He doesn't want to hurt anything. Hold your hand out like this." Lloyd extends his hand, palm up. The woman stared at him. "He'll sniff it- it shows you want to be his friend. Maybe he'll lick you, but other than that, nothing will happen." Slowly, she sat up properly, watching Noishe. Raine pauses in setting out cooking utensils, frowning as she caught sight of Lloyd retrieving his hand from Noishe's mouth. The large creature whines, flicking his ears down in a hurt expression, half watching the nameless woman and half his human.

"It'll be fine, I promise." Lloyd says, trying to get the thin woman comfortable with the creature, but at his half step forward, she shrinks back. It dawns on the teen that she was frightened of him too. He blinks, once or twice, before looking defeated. "Please?" he asks, mimicking the motion he told her to make, hand with palm up. She stares at him, wide eyed, and Lloyd sighs. "well... he really won't bite." Lloyd says, a bit lamely, rubbing the large creature behind the ears.

"Pressuring her won't make her accept any sooner." Raine says, coming over within the woman's sight to offer a hand to help her up. "If anything, you might make her more wary of everything." Kratos appears to be thinking, staring into space off to one side of the fire, his fingers tapping once in a while on his knee.

"Stews done." Genis announces, pulling out bowls, and then counting. ".. We're short one." Kratos's answer to this was to take one of the mugs, dip it in the pot, and walk back to his seat, a wood carved spoon in hand rather than the metal utensils.

"Problem solved!" Lloyd is excited at the prospect at food, and he gets in line behind Raine. Raine gathers two bowls, one filled more with the liquid than solids of meat and vegetables, and she walks over to where the thin woman had seated herself, and passes her the first bowl. The woman takes it, cradling it close to her torso as she watched them all with wide eyes. Raine showed her how to use the spoon, although the ranch victim eyed it distrustfully as the healer mimicked movements in the air, before staring at the one she had been passed. She ignores it in favor of drinking the soup from the bowl, her right arm moving awkwardly.

"No." Raine says firmly, not reaching out to tap the thin woman. She flinches anyway, blinking at her as she lowers the bowl. "Use the spoon. I showed you how." When the nameless one tries, it becomes painfully obvious that her right hand doesn't work normally, is incapable of turning over correctly. "Let's try this again. Hold the bowl like this." Raine moves the other woman's right hand so that she's holding the bowl by the lip with her right hand, and the spoon in her left. "Try again." The thin woman was able to eat now, but she still did it with that frantic sort of hurry that said she believed she was going to have her food taken, unaware that the rest of their party was watching her. As she finished with the bowl, she suddenly turned ashen, and Raine helped her to the bushes, where she lost the meal. Kratos looks away, looking disgusted with the world.

* * *

So! In case any of you had any trouble reading her lines... Here's a 'translation' in order of said.

"If y'kin git dis off mi, Ah kin hel miself." - "If you can get this off me, I can heal myself."

"Ah kold had tol' ya that." - "I could have told you that."

"Ma'ic only blu up in mi face, wen ah try'd. Stop'd try'n, dem Desians none to nice ab'ut patch'n us'n's up." - "Magic only blew up in my face, when I tried. Stopped trying, them Desians none to nice about patching us up."

"Dis weren't mi firs' 'ranch'. A'fore dis one, the fancy-dress'd one was squinty-eyed. A'fore dat, fancy cloth'd was red-hair'd. An' a'fore him, Pu'ple hair, cau's ah ran off from the one who only 'ad one hand, one eye. Ah dun 'member if der was ano'er ranch a'fore dat or no." - "This wasn't my first ranch. Before this one, the 'fancy dressed one'(Cardinal) was squinty-eyed(narrow eyed). Before that, the Cardinal was a redhead. And before him, (the cardinal was) purple haired, because I ran off from the one who only had one hand, one eye. I don't remember if there was another ranch before that or no."

"Dun got one." - "Don't have one."

"dis many. Dun know wot it's call'd tho, the num'er. If ah dun 'member it, ah dun have one. All dem Desians call anyone is things like Vermin, swine, bitch, inferior be'in, inferior critter. Ah dun think all us'ns in the ranch's all name'd things like that. They call us num'er's too, different num'er per person. Ah'm sommat like.. tree-tree, sev'to'for. But num'ers ain't a name." - "This many. Don't know what it's called though, the number. If I dun remember it(my name), I don't have one. All them Desians call anyone is things like vermin, swine, bitch, inferior being, inferior creature. I don't think all us in the ranches are all named things like that. They call us numbers too, different number per person. I'm something like... 33-724. But numbers aren't a name."

(1) A Dungeons and Dragons Item, Dark Crystal, or something like that. It has almost the same properties... but if you hit it with an enchanted item... the enchantment would be eaten, or if you hit it with a spell (and spells are memorised daily for Wizards and Sorcerers(i think. I'm always a Fighter.) it takes the spell from your memory, and sends you flying. this one;s a bit more tame :D

Sorry for killing you all -


End file.
